


A Different Kind of Training

by reeby10



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: First Kiss, Force-Sensitive Hux, Kissing, M/M, Meditation, Snark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-27
Updated: 2016-12-27
Packaged: 2018-09-12 12:48:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9072355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reeby10/pseuds/reeby10
Summary: Hux woke up to his belongings floating around the room. Again.





	

**Author's Note:**

> My gift for Kylux Secret Santa for theeascetic! I didn't get to the second half of your prompt, but I hope you enjoy this! It was a lot of fun to write :)
> 
> Disclaimer: I have no fucking idea how the Force works tbh. I'm just making this shit up lol

Hux woke up to his belongings floating around the room. Again.

As soon as he realized what was happening, they came crashing down. The sound jerked him out of his groggy, half awake stupor and in a moment he’d wrestled his way out of the mess of blankets on his bed. He stood in the middle of the room and surveyed the damage.

There was a vase in the corner that had cracked down the middle, water dripping down the edge of the table and flowers scattered on the ground. It had been a gift from the ambassador of a small planet and Hux had never particularly liked it, so it wasn’t a great loss. Most everything else showed no signs of damage. There were clothes that would need to be ironed and the glass from a picture from his academy days had cracked, but those were easy fixes.

The more pressing problem was why the krif this was happening to him.

He tried to remember what he’d been dreaming of before waking, but the images slipped through his mind as quickly as they appeared. It was the same as before. All he could recall was the vague impression of faces, hundreds of millions of them from every species imaginable, and the uncomfortable feeling that someone else had been watching him even in his dream.

It made the hair on the back of his neck prickle uncomfortably. The not knowing was painful, but there was nothing he could do about it if he couldn’t figure out what was happening. And he still had a ship to run.

The rest of the day was as usual, with the happenings of the early morning forcibly pushed to the back of his mind. It was harder than normal to compartmentalize things, but he knew better than to dwell on personal matters while on duty. It was a distraction to him and his men, and he couldn’t allow that to happen.

He did notice that Kylo Ren seemed even more obnoxious than usual, lurking in the edges of his vision whenever he turned his head. That wasn’t in itself a strange occurance as the Knight liked to be around whenever he wasn’t wanted, but this… this was something different. Hux wasn’t sure exactly what that something was, but he could feel it like electricity buzzing in the air. Something sharp and dangerous and frightening.

As he was making his way to his quarters after coming off duty, something made him turn to look down a cross corridor. He saw Ren again, standing there at the far end of the corridor, and Hux stopped short. They stared at one another for several long moments, or at least Hux assumed they did since he couldn’t see through that bloody mask.

“Ren,” he finally called, pitching his voice just loud enough that the other should be able to hear him. “I think it’s time we talked.”

He turned on his heel without waiting for an answer, knowing the Knight would follow him. It wasn’t every day he got an invitation into Hux’s private quarters. Even if Hux didn’t have the sinking feeling Ren knew more about what was going on than he’d so far said, the younger man would never give up that opportunity. He was, if nothing else, continually curious about his general.

Just as he suspected, Ren was only a few steps behind him when he stepped into his darkened rooms. He ignored the cloaked man for the moment, stripping off his outer garments and laying them on the stand he kept by his closet for that purpose.He poured himself a drink before settling into a plush chair with a tired sigh.

“Alright,” he said, taking a sip of amber liquid, “talk.”

Ren didn’t react for a moment. Hux was afraid he was going to have to demand answers more specifically, which would be difficult since he still wasn’t exactly sure what questions he should be asking, or even in what direction he should be looking. Thankfully it wasn’t long before Ren moved, hands coming up to release the latches on his helmet with a hiss.

Hux ignored the twinge of attraction that surfaced every time he saw that pale face and dark hair. It was so unfair that someone so obnoxious could be so good looking. At least Ren kept the helmet on far more often than not and he could ignore such feelings.

As soon as the thought crossed his mind, Ren’s face morphed into a smirk. Hux immediately bristled, though he couldn’t say exactly why. He only knew that that look on the Knight’s face always spelled trouble for him and he certainly didn’t need any more trouble at the moment. He needed answers.

“What the krif is going on?” Hux demanded, using the voice he usually reserved for unruly Stormtroopers or when Ren was having one of his fits.

Ren made a humming noise, head cocked curiously as he took a few steps forward. “You haven’t figured it out yet?”

“Obviously not,” Hux sneered, trying to hold back the roiling feelings that welled within him. He was just feeling so _much_ lately, and it was all so confusing. Not that he could tell Ren that, he did still have some pride left. He was used to being able to control himself better. “But I know you have something to do with it.”

“Not in quite the way you imagine,” Ren replied, which wasn’t really an answer at all. Just typical of those Force types, Hux had discovered long ago.

Hux bit back the urge to scream in frustration, taking a deep breath as the whole room seemed to vibrate in time with his anger. Probably a dizzy spell coming on, he must be even more tired than he thought. “What does that mean?” he bit out.

Ren smiled, and for once it didn’t look angry or resentful. “I would have thought it was obvious by now,” he said, gesturing around the room, eyes catching longer than necessary on the broken vase Hux hadn’t had a chance to clean up yet. “It’s the Force, General.”

“What about the Force?” Hux asked, breath stuck in a hard lump in his throat. This could not mean what he thought it meant. What he was afraid it meant. It was impossible.

“You’re Force-sensitive.”

All the air seemed to go out of the room all at once. At the sight of Ren’s widened eyes, Hux realized that it might be happening quite a bit more literally than he thought. With an internal force of will, he calmed himself, taking deep, even breaths. The strange pressure lifted and Ren relaxed a little, his shoulders coming down as he stepped forward to stand directly in front of Hux. He loomed, somehow not threatening like usual, but still so _there_.

“You need a teacher,” he said, and Hux wanted to laugh at how deadly serious he sounded, but he was afraid the sound would come out more hysterical than anything. “I can teach you.”

There was honestly nothing Hux wanted less in the world, but he was aware enough to know he didn’t have much other choice. Ren, the Knights, Snoke… they were the only Force-sensitives he could turn to, and Hux was certainly not going to take this to Snoke until he had better control over himself. Taming his temper with the Supreme Leader was difficult at the best of times. And the less said about the Knights the better in Hux’s opinion.

“Alright,” Hux said through gritted teeth. “You will teach me.”

***

The next days and weeks tried Hux’s patience more than he ever would have thought. Surprisingly, it wasn’t just spending so much of his off duty time with Ren that was the problem. In fact, Ren turned out to be a patient and thorough teacher for the most part, if as intense as in all other things. The bigger problem was Hux himself, which he resented more than anything.

Learned to control his connection with the Force, to guide it purposefully instead of having it lash out purely with his shifting emotions, was challenging. He was not used to not being perfect at everything he chose to do. He was putting everything he had into his training, using every trick and skill he had picked up at the Academy, but it was still not enough. It grated on him to have to work so hard for what seemed like so little reward, especially when the only thing he was training was himself and there was no outward sign of any of it.

It was beyond frustrating.

Every day before his shift started, Hux attempted to meditate. Ren had told him it was one of the most important skills for any Force-sensitive, whether he wished to progress further in his powers or just corral them. Hux had thought it would be easy since meditation was one of the skills he’d learned at the Academy, albeit mostly to control pain. That thought turned out to be very wrong.

He sat cross legged on the floor of his room, a candle–a gift from Ren–burning brightly in front of him and giving off a faint smell of cinnamon. Everything was quiet and calm. His eyes were closed as he breathed, trying to calm his thoughts and emotions.

It was somehow easier to feel the pull of the Force like this, and easy to see how he had accidentally wrought so much distraction in his sleep. It reached for him like the ocean’s tide, strong and inexorable and very close to overwhelming. Falling in, allowing himself to be swept away, would be all too easy. It took every ounce of his concentration to stay in the present, to stay mentally anchored to the ship.

His thoughts wandered. He could feel the Stormtroopers and officers in the vaguest sense, like knowing there were individual grains in a handful of sand. There was only one real bright spot, one speck of sand that stood out above the others. He knew it was Ren.

There had always been something about Ren that drew Hux in no matter how much he would have denied it if asked. It was an attraction easy enough ignored most of the time, but in mediation, Hux seemed to feel it even more keenly. His mind would always drift toward Ren, and he couldn’t say if that was a product of the Force guiding him or his own desires guiding the Force. And that, unfortunately, wasn’t something he could bring up in their after shift trainings.

“You’ve been thinking about me again,” Ren said later, as Hux entered the gym they’d claimed for the next hour. “I can feel it, you know, when you reach for me with your mind.”

“I’m not _reaching_ for you with anything,” Hux snapped, feeling the heat rising in his cheeks. He carefully controlled his breathing, hoping it would help.

Ren smirked. “Perhaps not consciously,” he conceded, but even then there was something almost mocking in his voice. It made Hux’s blood boil. “Unconsciously is quite another thing. You want me but you don’t want to want me, is that it?”

Hux gritted his teeth, stalking forward until he could poke Ren in the chest with one slim finger. Fury blazed in him along with some quite inappropriate arousal, creating a strange, confusing mix of emotions in his mind. It made it hard to think straight, but one thing he knew for sure was that he couldn’t allow Ren to think he’d one upped him. That was entirely unacceptable.

“I don’t want you at all,” Hux said with as much force behind his words as he could manage. Something rattled behind him, but he ignored it. “And you would do best to remember that.”

Far from intimidating him, the proclamation just made Ren smile wider. It only took a moment for Hux to realize he’d made a mistake, practically challenging the Knight like that. He’d made the same mistake early in their acquaintance, but it seemed the lesson he’d learned about that had fled his mind now. Worst of all, he was positive Ren knew how much that realization was putting him off in an already tense situation.

“We both know that’s not true,” Ren told him, voice dark and velvety smooth as he leaned in, looming into Hux’s space. “Besides, I’ve never really been very good at following directions, especially from you.”

Hux snorted, ignoring the way his stomach clenched at the proximity of the other man. Dammit, he’d been working so hard on controlling his body’s reactions. “That, at least, is true.”

For a moment, Hux thought Ren might say something more, try to intimidate him more, but the Knight had always been able to surprise him. And those full lips descending on his own in a hot, wet kiss, gloved hands coming up to cup and hold his face, was certainly a surprise he never would have been able to foresee.

It took a long moment before he gathered his wits enough to reciprocate. The first thought that crossed his mind was that this was some trick, that Ren was doing this to use Hux’s emotions against him. His second thought was that he absolutely didn’t care. Even if this was anything less than sincere, Ren was here, kissing him, and he wasn’t about to throw away that opportunity.

He slipped his hands around Ren’s neck, burying one hand in those dark locks. It was something he’d wanted to do since the first time he saw the other man without his mask, and the moan he received when he pulled a bit made it even more worth it. He couldn’t help but grin into the kiss, drinking up every sound.

“Fuck,” Ren groaned when they finally pulled apart, and Hux couldn’t help but agree.

They were both breathing hard after the kiss. Ren’s eyes looked a little glazed, much to Hux’s satisfaction, but he knew he probably didn’t look much better. Neither had moved more than a few inches away, hands still touching and stroking absently wherever they could reach. Hux shivered a little as one of the Knight’s hands found its way under his shirt.

“So… what now?” Hux asked after several moments of silence. Uncertainty was starting to bubble in his gut again, and for once he really had no idea of the direction he should take. Or, perhaps, that _they_ should take.

Ren shook his head a little, but there was a smile pulling at the corners of his mouth. “Well,” he said, voice more hoarse than before as he looked somewhere beyond Hux’s shoulder. The sound made something pleased and possessive curl in Hux’s chest. “I think a little more training is in order.”

Frowning, Hux turned to follow his gaze and froze. The weight center against the wall looked like someone had come through and thrown things around at random. A bench was turned over, cracked down the middle, and weights of various sizes were scattered around it. It was a mess.

“Did I do that?” Hux asked, turning back to the far too amused Knight. He couldn’t even manage to feel put off at the smile, surprise and the beginnings of annoyance at his own incompetence overwhelming anything else.

“Yes,” Ren replied with a liquid shrug. “But… I couldn’t say it was only you.”

Hux narrowed his eyes, mind ticking in overtime. “Are you saying you lost control as well?” he demanded, heart beating in his ears. Ren wasn’t exactly known for his control, but this was something quite different than his normal tantrums.

Ren flushed a little, turning his face away without bothering to answer. Hux rolled his eyes at the childish display, but couldn’t deny that the idea of Ren losing control like that just from kissing him was somehow very satisfying. And if even the mastery of the Lord of the Knights of Ren sometimes slipped, well, he was much more content with the self-restraint he had thus far acquired for his own power.

“Hmm, that is _very_ interesting,” Hux finally said, catching Ren’s attention again. He grinned, slow and dangerous, and he could see the way Ren’s eyes dilated as he let his desire leak out around them again. “What do you think we should be doing about that?”

“More… training?” Ren asked, sounding more than a little disappointed at the idea, even if it was the wrong one.

For once, that was not Hux’s intention at all. He stepped forward, pulling Ren into another searing kiss. When they broke apart, Ren’s eyes were once again glazed with arousal, and he looked much happier. Hux felt quite the same, and he hoped to get an even better reaction very soon.

“More training, yes,” he said, heading for the door without waiting to see if Ren would follow. He had a strong feeling he would. “But I think this time the bedroom would be a better environment for it.”

It only took a second before Ren caught up, eyes bright with barely concealed excitement. Hux just hoped they didn’t run into any Stormtroopers along the way.

**Author's Note:**

> Concrit welcome. If you like my fic, feel free to come hit me up [on tumblr](http://voldiebuns.tumblr.com/)!


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